


It

by WennyT



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Blood and Gore, Control Issues, Gen, Graphic Description, Haunted House Trope, Horror, LOTS of Minor Character Deaths, Other, Psychological Horror, Suicide Attempt, Triggers, please heed the warnings, the YunJae is a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:03:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/pseuds/WennyT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It just wants a little bit of Yunho’s joy. It just wants a little bit of Yunho’s love. And It doesn’t want to share Yunho with anything or anyone. At all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bare minimum of research done; only relying on years and years of following Discovery's A Haunting and horror films. The title is a shameless tribute to Stephen King. Please offer feedback.

 

It begins, as any haunting is wont to begin, with the littlest things.

Sometimes Yunho will find his missing phone back in his bag after turning the entire thing upside down and inside out in a frenzied but futile search for it.

Sometimes he comes home and his bedroom light is switched off when he swears that he left it on by accident hours before, when he was leaving for work.

Sometimes he wears his shoes into the living room and leaves them beneath the couch but wakes up the next day to find them lined up neatly at the entryway.

Sometimes he leaves the toothpaste in the shower after brushing his teeth, but finds it back in his rinsing cup when he heads back into his lavvie for one last hair check before leaving the house.

Yunho finds it endlessly amusing at first. He tells his best friend, Donghae so over their weekly pint of ale at the local pub. Donghae isn’t so sure. “Yunho,” he says, swirling his mug and staring the white foam clinging to its sides, “doesn’t It give you the creeps? I mean, okay, so far It’s been harmless, but it still means there’s something in your house that’s not quite… Yeah.”

Yunho shrugs, tipping the dregs of his own mug back in one go. “Like you said, It’s harmless. I think it’s cute.”

“Cute?” Donghae stares at him like he’s just announced to the entire bar that he’s feeling horny and wants a go at Thatcher’s corpse.

“Yeah,” Yunho chuckles. “It’s like having a ghostly butler. A housekeeper of the Casper kind.”

“Whatever you say, mate,” Donghae shakes his head and hails the barman for another mug. The conversation steers towards another, more innocuous direction after that.

*

Yunho potters along with his life well enough with his supernatural housemate. Sometimes he comes home to a broken plate or two, but he shrugs it off as his invisible housemate feeling playful. It must be boring haunting one place of residence and having nowhere else to go.

If he remembers to do so, he leaves the telly on, on some days when he leaves earlier to avoid the morning rush hour. He always comes back to a house that just seems slightly tidier on those days. He reckons it’s the whatever-it-is’ way of saying thank you.

There are hauntings and there are _hauntings_ , he thinks. It’s always been his habit to look for the silver lining in life, and he thinks that having a non-aggressive supernatural presence that is more than occasionally helpful is plenty shiny enough for him.

*

Things change when Yunho brings Jaejoong home.

*

Months after that one incident that made it all spiral out of control, Yunho looks back and rails at himself for his stupidity. He doesn’t even like Jaejoong that much. He doesn’t even know Jaejoong that well. The encounter turned out to be a one night stand that wasn’t even a one night stand, considering how badly –and bloody— things turned out.

He was just looking for a quick fuck that Friday, that Friday that started it all. Donghae and his other best friend, Heechul, had both called him to beg off their monthly gathering, one citing work as his reason –Heechul was just venturing out as a transvestite stripper then— and the other, with an excuse of the double X variety—Donghae had just gotten back together with his long-time girlfriend Eunja.

He went to the bar alone, feeling somewhat depressed at how his friends all had places to be on a Friday night, and sat at the counter, a mug of his usual in hand. Then Jaejoong had come over, armed with the usual cheesy repertoire of dirty pick-up lines.

Yunho had grabbed him by the collar at “Boy, you’re like a pick-up truck, it takes more than a load to get the job done”. There had been a flash of apprehension in the other man’s eyes, but it morphed into white-hot lust when Yunho yanked him closer to suck on his tongue.

“My name is Jaejoong,” the stranger had murmured. “Wanna have sex?”

He thought he could fuck the loneliness away. “Okay.”

*

They stumble against his front door, Yunho with his keys clenched in one hand. It takes them fifteen minutes to get through the door alone, though, because Jaejoong grinds down at a particularly hard thrust from Yunho and they end up dry-humping each other against the wall, the urge to fuck wiping out all rational thought from his mind.

“In,” he gasps against Jaejoong’s mouth. The other moans and yanks at his hair. Yunho mouths at his throat. “Inside!”

It takes them some more lurching and bumping and crashing to end up in Yunho’s living room, and Jaejoong is tearing at Yunho’s belt buckle when he grabs at the shorter man’s hands and chokes out, “Bedroom!”

“Fuck your bedroom,” the other man replies, and pushes Yunho down on his own couch so hard that Yunho almost bounces off of it again. After that, it’s all a blur of tongue and teeth and hands, and Jaejoong is shoving Yunho’s cock halfway up his arse when the sound of shattering glass comes from the kitchen.

“What the—?” Yunho starts to push Jaejoong away to sit up, but the other shoves him back down again with a hoarse, “Fuck whatever it is, if I don’t get your big cock into me right now, I swear I’ll die!”

Yunho’s housemate-that-isn’t-quite-a-housemate isn’t quite pleased with that.

The next thing Yunho knows, Jaejoong’s searing heat has been ripped off of his cock, and the arousal clouding his higher cognitive functions leaves him staring stupidly as Jaejoong gets yanked backwards by some unseen force to crash against the fireplace.

Jaejoong screams, a high, discordant note saturated with pain; his back connects with the marble mantel with the wet plopping sound of a watermelon against concrete. It’s enough to snap Yunho out of his daze, and he tries to stand up, to stop It, but he can’t move.

He’s pinned to the couch, arms and legs made immobile by invisible restraints. His eyes are the only part of him that are still able to obey his brain’s commands; Yunho can only look on helplessly as Jaejoong’s whimpers get fainter and fainter with every jarring smack against the cold marble.

He finds his limbs capable of movement again when Jaejoong turns silent and tumbles down from his impossible position mid-air against the fireplace to sprawl carelessly on the floor like a cast-aside marionette with cut strings. Pushing away from the sofa, he reaches out with trembling fingers to lay two against the other man’s philtrum.

A jagged wheeze escapes him when there’s no puff of air against the pads of his fingers.

He backs away from the man—the corpse, a voice in his head supplements— with such haste that he trips and falls over the couch to land hard on his back. A bolt of searing pain spikes up his back, and he can vaguely hear soft laughter coupled with the continuous, agonized shriek of a wounded animal.

It isn’t under Yunho half-crawls and half-rolls into his bedroom that he realizes he’s the one shrieking.

*

He wakes up in the morning and the body is gone. He attempts to convince himself that it was a nightmare, but it doesn’t work, because the bloodstains remain.

The hardwood floor before his fireplace is stained an obscene maroon that slowly deepens into brown a shade darker than rust as the days go by.

*

Yunho doesn’t remember much of the days following Jaejoong’s –death— disappearance. He remembers scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, breaking down in histrionics when the red refuses to go away. He remembers hurrying into a furniture store to buy a large carpet. He remembers declining Heechul and Donghae’s many invitations to hang out.

He remembers feeling a presence occasionally when he showers.

Most of all he remembers soft laughter and the terrifying sensation of being watched whenever he tries to go into the kitchen. The… whatever-it-is seems to prefer the kitchen to all the other rooms in his house.

He tries not to go into the kitchen after that.

In fact, he tries to eat out every single day, but sometimes it’s as though something is calling him home. He takes to buying sandwiches and eating them as dinner at his dance studio, promising himself that he’ll go to the bowling alley down the street to knock pins down till dawn. But he always ends up at his own doorstep later in the night with the thought, _but I was going somewhere else_ , ringing in his head.

*

Yunho can’t buy a new place nor sell his house, as much as he wants to. His funds are all tied up in it, the down payment having taken out the bulk of his savings. He bought the house pretty much on impulse, seeing the ‘For Sale’ sign go up in front of the Victorian-style terrace house one day as he was walking to work from his –then- rented apartment. He had always been in love with its slightly haphazard air growing up, but it stood empty for many a year and there were whispers about the community regarding how the owner was an eccentric old man who refused to sell even though he was not even living on the property.

Hence, the purchase the minute it went on sale.

He’s still earning steady money with his job as a modern dance instructor at the community centre though, and while it allows him to live comfortably enough even while setting aside money for the monthly instalments, it doesn’t afford him access to a pile of cash large enough to finish paying what he owes the previous owner in one go.

His only option is to crash at his friends’ places, and while Yunho knows that they’re loyal enough to let him stay should he ask, he also knows without doubt that they’ll have questions. And Yunho doesn’t want to answer the questions, doesn’t want them to know any of it.

He doesn’t want anyone to end up with Jaejoong’s fate.

*

He has nowhere else to go, except for his house. He has no one else to confide in, no one who knows the truth, except his house.

 

*

Yunho tries his hardest to stay sane.

*

It goes back to the little things for a while after that, but Yunho is no longer amused by any of it. He takes care to put things back where he’s taken them from too, his toothpaste from his rinsing cup, his phone in its stand in his bedroom, his shoes neatly lined together at the entry way, and lights all off when he leaves the house.

He’s almost, _almost_ used to coming back to his house feeling as though his things are arranged slightly different from how he’s left them, but he can never tell just how and where the differences are. He tries to force the resulting fear and the paranoia away, but they always seem to increase in magnitude when he tries to suppress the emotions, until they bloom, dark and lush in his head, and he finds himself crying without sound into his pillow at night, sobbing so hard that he ends up semi-suffocating on his own spit.

*

Yunho jumps at the slightest of sounds now, and his students have learnt to not quite touch him even when they asks him to re-demonstrate a move, because Mister Jung doesn’t like being touched and is liable to explosive swearing or panicked yelps accompanied with hard punches when approached by too-sudden movements.

*

Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and he can feel fingers in his hair, combing through it. It’s somewhat reminiscent of his mother’s touch when he was a child, and more often than not he leans into the combing before waking up completely to the horrified realization of who-or rather what- is touching him.

It always laughs as though entertained by his terror, and he can feel It lingering for an indeterminate amount of time before leaving the room.

He never sleeps after these encounters, preferring to stay wide-awake until the sun peeks over the horizon.

*

It takes four more months before Yunho works up enough courage to confide in Heechul. To his credit, the older man does not laugh, nor does he tell Yunho that he’s imagining things.

“I wondered when you were going to tell me what’s troubling you,” They’re in Yunho’s dance studio, Heechul having ostensibly dropped by after his shift at work to learn a new move for his stripping routine. Yunho knows it’s just an excuse to look in on him.

Heechul pauses and does a catwalk strut along the double- _barre_ , twirling around to stare critically at his reflection for flaws in his pose. “I just didn’t think that it’d be something like this.”

Yunho finds his vision blurring and curses himself for being weak. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. I didn’t—I don’t want to harm anyone else. But I just… I really don’t know what to do.”

“You’re not dragging me into this,” Heechul’s tone is firm. “ _I’m_ dragging me into this because you’re my oldest friend and I’m worried about you. _I_ want to be involved.”

*

Heechul insists on accompanying him home despite Yunho’s vehement objections.

*

“Hi,” Heechul calls loudly into the dark interior of Yunho’s house as he toes his shoes off. “I’m Yunho’s friend, I’m staying over but I’m not doing anything to him, so don’t you dare fucking hurt him or touch him again just because of what you _think_ I’m doing to him. Got it?”

“Heechul,” Yunho hisses, distressed and anxious. “Heechul, stop it. Don’t test Its patience.”

His best and oldest friend scoffs. “I’m not testing It. I’m just saying what I think. Out loud. Or,” he questions the living room defiantly, “is that a crime now?”

“ _Heechul_!” Tugging at his friend’s arm, Yunho shakes his head violently.

*

Heechul shares Yunho’s bed that night, but they do nothing except sleep, heads lolling against each other’s; a throwback to their childhood, when they had sleepovers at Yunho’s house after staying up too late to play video games on school nights.

It flares up in displeasure nevertheless, and he wakes up abruptly in deep night to the sound of Yunho’s traumatized pain-filled yells. Heechul fumbles about for a switch, heart thudding erratically against his ribcage at the sticky feel of some unknown substance beneath his fingers.

They turn on the lights to discover four letters carved crudely into Yunho’s left forearm, the arm that was slung innocently, unconsciously over Heechul’s shoulder.

 _M-I-N-E_ , it reads in large, uneven strokes, cutting so deep into some areas that they can see the glint of white bone.

Heechul curves an arm about Yunho’s shaking back, lips pressed into a grim line as he rocks his distraught friend back and forth. “I’m here, I’m here. I’m here.”

He doesn’t say _it’s going to be okay_ , because that would be a lie.

*

They call Donghae the next day and meet up at the park two streets over to tell him about it at Heechul’s insistence. Yunho doesn’t feel safe talking about It in his house, not when It is listening.

Donghae’s reaction is markedly different from Heechul’s. He’s more violent, swearing and kicking at the bench, shouting ‘I told you so’ at Yunho, only stopping when Heechul says his name sharply, an utterance staccato like a gunshot unto the air.

“I know a priest who’s good with this sort of stuff,” he sits down and speaks after a short pause. “I remember when I was a kid that people used to look for him to conduct exorcisms, house blessings and the like. He’s still leading Masses at my childhood church, I think. I can call my parents to ask for his number.”

“You do that,” Heechul nods sombrely at him over the shivering wreck that is Yunho sandwiched between them on the bench. “I don’t know shit about ghosts and all, and well. You know I never used to believe in them, and— Your priest sounds more familiar with them.”

“Yeah,” Donghae says. “Yeah. I’ll call my mother now.” He fumbles for his phone.

*

Donghae’s priest is a fatherly old man who doesn’t look a day over fifty, and insists on being called Father Siwon instead of the full salutation of Father Andrew Choi Siwon. He eschews the traditional Cossack and opts for a relatively modern black dress shirt with a tab-collar and trousers instead. Yunho is surprised to hear that he will be turning seventy-five in a few weeks.

He exchanges pats on the back with Donghae and shakes hands with Heechul, smiling benevolently when Donghae, in a not-too-successful attempt to keep the atmosphere light, prattles on about Heechul “being an atheist, go on, Father, tell him he’s going to Hell”.

His expression turns grave, however, at the sight of Yunho’s arm. The gouges are healing, and but even though some areas are scabbing over, it still looks raw as a whole. “Oh, my child.”

“Can you help me, Father?” Yunho whispers, not daring to hope.

Father Siwon smiles at him reassuringly. “We can but try.”

*

Yunho’s heart sinks with every step Father Siwon takes. The house, no, It seems to suck at the priest’s vitality somehow; a tour around the house seems to sap him of his energy and makes him look every single one of his seventy-four years.

“Father, are you all right?” Yunho asks anxiously when the priest sways on his feet at the doorway to the kitchen.

“It’s strongest here,” the priest murmurs, laying a hesitant hand on the wooden doorframe. “The presence.”

He gazes at Yunho, mouth crumpled in a frown. “You don’t go into this part of your house often, do you.”

“No,” Yunho answers even though it is not a question. An involuntary shudder runs through him at the thought of entering the kitchen, even if it is to get a glass of water now. “No, I don’t.”

*

They congregate in the living room, Father Siwon at the loveseat opposite them and Yunho on the couch, flanked by Heechul and Donghae on the left and right like a pair of over-protective bodyguards.

Father Siwon clears his throat and stares at the Bible that has never left his hands from the moment he steps into Yunho’s house. “I can do a house blessing for you, my child, but I have to warn you that it may not be… entirely effective.”

Yunho bites his lip so hard that he can taste copper in his mouth. Heechul asks the pertinent question for him, impatience lending a caustic edge to his voice. “But why, Father?”

“The…” the priest searches for a word, finally settling on “entity is just too strong now. I’m afraid it’s been gorging itself on your energy for a long time. Bless the Lord, but Donghae tells me that it has been in your house ever since you moved in, hasn’t it? That’s about… two years? Two years is a long time for these things to gather power. Not that I’m blaming you, my child,” he is quick to add, “but it’s true that your fear has endowed it with much strength.”

The words strike Yunho on the head like a blunt hammer on an iron nail, devastating in their impact. He can vaguely hear the priest holding onto his hands and murmuring words and comfort, of encouragement, but all he can think of is: _I caused this, I caused this, I caused this._

 _It was me. I caused the death of an innocent man. I caused this._ I _caused this._

*

Father Siwon attempts a house blessing with a stricken Yunho by his side, but the air condenses about them when they reach Yunho’s bedroom, the chill almost a tangible manifestation. Their breaths puff out in whorls of icy white mist, and the three younger men clench their teeth to stop them from chattering in the cold. Only Father Siwon appears unaffected by the sudden temperature drop.

But the priest only gets as far as “Jesus, I ask that you cast out any and all evil spirits—” before an unseen force shoves them all out to sprawl on the hardwood floor.

The bedroom door slams shut in their faces, soft laughter resounding in their ears.

*

Father Siwon leaves with promises of consulting other priests he knows to formulate an effective solution to Yunho’s problem. “I will not come back without a solution for you,” he declares in ringing tones to a somewhat unresponsive Yunho.

*

Donghae receives word a fortnight later that Father Siwon has died of a heart attack just shy of his seventy-fifth birthday.

Yunho blames himself.  
 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Donghae, despite being a devout Catholic, ends up being the one who suggests inviting a medium to the house.

 

“It doesn’t hurt to try,” he argues as Heechul glares at him with arms almost punishingly tight about Yunho. There’s a fresh A-L-W-A-Y-S on Yunho’s right forearm to match the scarred over (but no less pronounced) M-I-N-E disfiguring his left.

 

They’re leaving the wounds exposed to open air, only covered by a thin layer of antiseptic cream because Heechul reads from the Internet that covering such wounds with bandages seem to make it easier for them to become infected and discharge pus.

 

Yunho insists on not going to the hospital at any costs. “Please, no, they’ll think I did this to myself and put me in a mental institution somewhere,” he begs Heechul one evening a week previous when the latter appears hell-bent on dragging him to one for professional care, when the wounds don’t appear to show any marked signs of healing. It’s the first time Heechul shouts at him since being made privy to Yunho’s ordeal. “Donghae and I aren’t professionals, Yunho, what if we’re making your injuries worse instead of better?”

 

“No, no,” Yunho pleads, hunched over against Heechul’s leg, “no, please, no hospital, please, please, please, no, please—”

 

“Heechul, we shouldn’t—” Donghae starts, but is silenced by a furious glare from the older man. “What do you mean by we shouldn’t? Look at those wounds, that one on his fucking arm isn’t even healing at all, it’s fucking oozing black blood, we don’t know how to treat it!”

 

But Yunho has started to choke on truncated gulps of air then, a panic attack muting his increasingly desperate protests, and the argument is cut short and abandoned with his best friends’ frantically clumsy attempts to halt it.

 

“It doesn’t!” Donghae insists, and Heechul, brought back to the present from that awful evening, gives in with a jerky nod and pressed lips, curling the corners up in a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

Yunho doesn’t stop staring at his arms, gaze blank and unseeing.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t seem to like the fact that Heechul and Donghae have basically moved in with Yunho. It doesn’t seem to like it at all.

 

* * *

 

The night before the medium arrives, the three of them awake sometime near dawn when Yunho gets ripped from another fitful slumber by scorching fire down his back. He greets the pain with a strangled wheeze, halfway used to the agony. Heechul and Donghae bolt upright from either side of him, senses overly alerted to any faint noise these days.

 

Donghae lifts the back of Yunho’s T-shirt cautiously to reveal three long, deep scratches that have already split skin and drawn blood; the cold air flowing over the fresh wounds eliciting a distressed shudder from Yunho. Heechul lets out a hiss at the –literally- bloody sight.

 

Swearing agitatedly beneath his breath, Donghae is at the very extreme end of his tether. “What the fuck do you want,” he shouts into the darkness while scrubbing a frustrated hand through his hair, “just what the fuck do you want, huh? What the fuck do we have to give you for you _to stop hurting him_? Fuck!”

 

Soft laughter and nothing else answers him.

 

* * *

 

The medium is an enthusiastic young man by the name of Sungmin, who enters Yunho’s house with a battered suitcase in one hand and a snapping turtle called Yesung in the other.

 

“This is my spirit guide,” Sungmin points at the animal while explaining to a thin-lipped Heechul and an interested Donghae; he unpacks a collection of unusual instruments from his case even as he talks. Yunho bites his lip and hugs his arms to himself, not looking away from the floor.

 

“What does it do?” Donghae pokes at the turtle’s shell, shrinking backwards when the reptile whips its scaly head about to snap at his fingers with an audible ‘clack’. “Jesus!” 

 

“Careful, he doesn’t really know how to interact with humans,” Sungmin warns absentmindedly as he fiddles with something that looks like a broom with a light bulb attached to it. “And he communicates with some of the spirits when they don’t really want to talk to me. Lots of them don’t really like us mortals because we remind them of how things were when they were alive. Anyway. Which one of you is the owner of this house?”

 

Heechul nudges Yunho forward, distrust evident in his rigid posture; both arms akimbo at his side. “Him. His name is Yunho.”

 

“Hi, I’m Sungmin,” Sungmin stretches out a hand towards Yunho, but the former cannot prevent a shudder from running through him as their hands join in a clasp. “Whoa,” the medium mutters, biting his lip, “it’s imprinted on you, huh?”

 

“What do you mean,” Heechul snaps, fury barely contained. “What imprinting?”

 

Sungmin darts a wary glance at Heechul but chooses to address Donghae and Yunho instead. “His aura is… Well, there’s no other way to put it, but your aura isn’t, er, it isn’t completely human now. I’m guessing that your er, houseguest has been here for quite some time, eh?”

 

“Yeah,” Yunho replies, gaze fixed on the fiddle-back figure running through the grain of the wooden floor. He does not proceed to elaborate, and Donghae grabs him by the shoulder and gives him a little shake.

 

Yunho looks up, disoriented. He meets Donghae’s anxious eyes and cough uncomfortably. “Um. Oh. I-I- Yes. The priest that was here sometime before said it’s been about… about two years?”

 

“Two years,” Sungmin looks nonplussed. “Just out of curiosity, but why didn’t you ask the p-”

 

“He’s dead,” Heechul answers shortly, drumming his fingers against the back of the armchair he is leaning against.

 

“I… see.” Yunho doesn’t know if it’s a trick of the lighting, but Sungmin looks a shade paler than before. The medium clears his throat and claps his hands together twice, the sound loud but oddly muffled. “Well. Okay. Let’s get started, shall we? Maybe we can begin by you showing me about the house.”

 

* * *

 

This time nothing –well nothing _bad_ — happens in the bedroom, and Yunho feels his shoulders relaxing slightly. Maybe It is tired of Its own games. Maybe this means that It has grown bored of Yunho. Maybe Yunho can finally allow himself to hope.

 

Maybe the nightmare is almost over.

 

“And that's the kitchen,” Yunho nods, pointing at the kitchen. He isn't going in there. Nothing really happened when they toured his bedroom save for a deepening chill, for which he is grateful. He is not going to test his luck. Nor It, Yunho is not going to test It.

 

Sungmin has other ideas, however. Tapping his fingers against the wooden doorframe, he looks directly at Yunho. "Will you show me the interior?"

 

Yunho balks visibly at that, and Heechul and Donghae are by his side a second later, puffed up like a pair of overprotective tigresses. "That's enough," Heechul snarls, chin lifted, "Can't you see it's upsetting him?" Donghae nods, an arm tight around Yunho's shaking shoulders.

 

The medium ignores the two of them, choosing not to break eye contact with Yunho. "I have to explore every inch of your house in order to understand the presence, and in order to help you, Yunho. And if my conjectures are correct, this," he raps hard against the wood again, the hollow sound loud like a gunshot, "is the presence's territory, is it not?"

 

Yunho whimpers involuntarily, too far gone to even feel ashamed at making such a sound in front of a virtual stranger. Heechul makes as to speak again, but Donghae shushes him. Heechul's face darkens, and he takes a deep breath, mouth opening, but he bites back his words.

 

Sungmin continues to appeal to Yunho. "It's your house, Yunho. You let the presence claim this area as Its territory, but now you want it back, don't you? You're the owner of the house. The kitchen belongs to you, Yunho. The kitchen belongs to you alone."

 

Emboldened, Yunho forces himself to meet Sungmin's eyes. "Yes," he tries not to stammer. "Yes, it's my kitchen. It's my house."

 

* * *

 

They stand in the kitchen; Sungmin and Yunho nearer to the sink, Donghae and Heechul by the dust covered dining table.

 

Everything is still, so still in a wrong way here.

 

The dining table is covered with dust, neglected by the months Yunho spends away from it. Yet the sink and the kitchen counter are spotless, as though they were wiped down minutes before.

 

That is not the part that's left all four men uneasy, however.

 

Every piece of cutlery, or rather, utensils that Yunho possesses is currently laid out on the dust covered table, in perfect dining formation; salad fork on the outside of the meat fork, butter knife on the outside of the steak knife. Tablespoons are placed perpendicular and exactly two centimetres above the cutlery.

 

The table is set for five.

 

But the plates and water glasses are nowhere in sight. They have been stacked neatly, in groups of five, upon the kitchen counter, just next to the dishwasher instead.

 

"What the f-" Donghae claps a hand over Heechul's mouth, muffling the rest of that statement.

 

“Huh,” Sungman says, blinking furiously. “Huh. Okay. Um. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He moves over to the kitchen counter, beckoning Yunho over with a slightly trembling hand. “I’m going to need to get you to come here, Yunho.”

 

Yunho flinches backwards, towards Donghae and Heechul, towards where it is safe, but Sungmin continues, undeterred. “I’m going to need you to come here and take one of the water glasses stacked here, and pour me a glass of tap water.”

 

“I’ll do it,” Heechul says, arm already curving comfortingly about Yunho’s back. Sungmin shakes his head, countenance and tone equally grim. “Believe me, I don’t want to make Yunho do this too. I’ll let you do it for him if it works that way. But it doesn’t. He has to offer me the water, because he’s the owner of the house. I need the owner of the house to do this for me, and only then,” he turns and focuses on Yunho, beseeching, “only then I have the right to aid you to force it out. Only then we can force this creature out of this house.”

 

Yunho takes a step forward. Emboldened, Sungmin continues. “You don’t need to pour a large glass or anything. It’s symbolic. Just a mouthful will be fine. I just need enough to pour into my mouth.”

 

Yunho takes another step, and another. And yet another. He finds himself standing in front of Sungmin soon enough, and he locks his knees together to stop them from shaking. Sungmin smiles at him, encouraging, and Yunho inhales and reaches out for the stack of water glasses sitting neatly by the sink. He is pleased to note that his fingers are not trembling too much.

 

He closes them around a water glass, the topmost of the stack, and it is oddly hard to separate it from the rest, like pulling one’s feet out from a bog when they get stuck in deceivingly green grass that is actually marsh. He manages it anyway, the glass coming free with a muffled pop, as though something was sucking on it.

 

The noise does something to their ears. It’s as though their eardrums have cleared from pressure, and the trickle of water as Yunho turns on the tap is the clearest thing he has heard in a while. Filling the glass till it is half empty, he hands it over to Sungmin, jumping a little when their fingers brush. In contrast to his own, Sungmin’s fingers feel hot, almost feverish.

 

“Thank you,” the medium murmurs, and he swishes the water in the glass around, gaze apprehensive. Heechul speaks from behind Yunho, very much subdued with most of his impotent fury gone. “Now… Now what?”

 

“Now,” Sungmin lifts the glass up, almost in a macabre toast, and he looks about the kitchen defiantly, chin tilted upwards, “now I drink.”

 

And he does exactly that and Donghae starts to speak, only to be cut short by Sungmin choking violently while grabbing for his own throat. They hurry towards him, and Yunho catches him by the shoulders before the medium tumbles to the ground, the water he has drunk dribbling past his lips. Donghae turns to get him another glass of water, but stops when Sungmin waves a hand at him frantically, still gagging and coughing as though he is strangled by his very breath.

 

Heechul hovers, mouth a thin grim slash. He darts forward, though, when it becomes apparent that Sungmin is not going to be able to breathe properly without help. Looping his arms about Sungmin’s chest from behind, he presses hard, again and again, until Sungmin stops throwing up water –too much water to have come from the one mouthful he had swallowed- and starts to breathe again.

 

“Sulphur,” is the first word the medium chokes out, voice hoarse and scraped raw till it is only a bare thread of sound. Heechul thumps at his back as Donghae runs to the bedroom for the box of tissues they have taken to keeping beside the bed to help blot the flow of blood from Yunho’s injuries at night.

 

“ _Sulphur_ ,” he repeats, grabbing for Yunho’s hand and pressing his fingers into Yunho’s palm, ignoring Heechul’s admonishments for him to not speak until he catches his breath. “I tasted sulphur, it’s sulphur, you don’t have a spirit here. It’s _all_ sulphur.”

 

He draws in a much needed gulp of air, and grips at Yunho tighter. His face is waxy pale and Yunho cannot help but think it looks like a death mask. The medium’s next words make him tighten his own fingers about the other’s and he realises with a start that their hands are equally cold now.

 

“It isn’t a spirit. It’s a demon. You have a demon here. You have a demon in this house.”

 

* * *

 

“So you drink the water and you can tell the nature of whatever-it-is that’s haunting here?” Heechul tries to keep his skepticism hidden but it bleeds into his voice anyway. Sungmin is sitting, pale but upright, on the exact spot on the sofa where Yunho was at when he watched Jaejoong die.

 

Yunho does not tell Sungmin this.

 

The medium straightens even more, offence stark in every line of his body. “I have the gift of clairgustance,” he says, folding his hands neatly upon his lap, mouth compressed into a thin slash. “I can taste the auras of spirits without putting anything physical in my mouth, of course. But the aura of this… thing felt muddy, and having Yunho grant me a drink of water within his own house would give me more power over the— over It. ”

 

“And it worked,” he continues, pleating his fingers together, his gaze unwavering upon Yunho. “And now we know why I found Its aura muddy. It’s because It is far more powerful than you and I or even all of us put together.”

 

Heechul does not have a retort, for once. Donghae opens his mouth to ask if Sungmin has any confidence in pitting himself against It and coming out on top, but the latter answers before Donghae can so much utter a word.

 

“It feels old.” The medium admits. _Too old_ hangs in the air, unspoken. “I can try an exorcism, but,” he swallows, and refrains from looking at any of them. “I am not a hundred percent sure It will... wish to leave.”

 

* * *

 

They gather in the kitchen once more, the air fraught with tension and something else.  Heechul and Donghae rub at the goose-bumps popping up along their arms, looking faintly uneasy at the sudden drop in temperature. Yunho tries not to look at them; he forces his eyes to meet that of Sungmin’s instead. The knowledge and the fear he sees in them tells him that Sungmin knows the reason for the chill, too.

 

It is here, in the kitchen, with them. _Watching_ them.

 

Sungmin squares his shoulders and gets to work; only the slight tremor in his hands betrays his nervousness. His instruments are laid out neatly on the table, an assortment of bronze and iron and copper. The only thing Yunho recognises is the dish of blessed salt, placed farthest on the right. Yesung is cradled in the medium’s arms, and the turtle is alert, powerful jaws gaping open.

 

They had removed the cutlery and placed them in the sink a while ago, half-expecting to be injured or maimed for doing that. It did not do anything, but that just makes them all the more uneasy.

 

“All right. This is it.” Sungmin murmurs, seating himself at the head of the table. “If you three would each sit in a dining chair…”

 

There are four empty chairs, though.

 

“What about the last one—” Donghae starts to ask, but Sungmin cuts him off with a terse, “move it to the living room. We don’t need anything else joining us.”

 

Yunho’s heart skips a beat in pure terror, and he hurries to do as Sungmin says, dragging the heavy wooden chair out to the living room. He keeps his gaze averted away from the sofa, focused on the ground.

 

He returns to Sungmin seated with Donghae and Heechul flanking him, chairs placed opposite each other perpendicular to the medium’s. Yesung is crawling slowly around the table, head craned upwards, into the air. There is an empty chair at the other end of the table, and when Yunho looks askance at Sungmin, the latter tries a reassuring smile. “I need you to sit opposite me, Yunho.”

 

“All— all right.” Yunho nods, and slides into it. It feels strange, sitting on his own, without the comfort of Heechul and Donghae squeezed in beside him. He feels exposed, naked; uneasy at how there is still space behind and in front of him.

 

He pulls the chair in, closer to the table.

 

Sungmin nods, and offers him a faint smile of approval. Yunho tries not to notice how the edges of the medium’s mouth are trembling.

 

“Now put both your hands on the table, outstretched, with your palm facing downwards,” Sungmin instructs. They comply, Heechul a beat slower than Donghae and Yunho. “I want you to close your eyes, and—”

 

He breaks off in a gasp that ends in a choked, odd-sounding gurgle. Yunho’s eyes fly open, and he stares in horror as Sungmin’s mouth open and closes, one hand reaching up to the back of his neck. He turns his head, all the while grappling with something metallic at his nape, and Yunho groans, horror and guilt a nauseating mix churning in his stomach, as he stares at the dining fork embedded deep into Sungmin’s flesh.

 

 _Not again,_ he despairs. _Not again not again not again._

 

“Fuck!” Heechul is already on his feet, chair toppling over with a crash. The three of them run over to him, and Sungmin turns, staggering out of his chair. Donghae tries to catch him, but shrinks back involuntarily when two other dining forks flew from the sink to stab into Sungmin’s eyes.

 

Scraping his knee in pushing away from the table, Yunho tries to run to Sungmin’s aid, but his legs are not working right. The atmosphere of the room is dense, heavy, so heavy that Yunho feels like he is trying to run underwater.

 

He struggles against it, his limbs oddly lax, like pulled taffy, only an arm’s length away from Sungmin when the latter crashes to the floor.

 

The medium cries out in agony, writhing on the floor, as Donghae and Heechul try to help, but their attempts are largely futile. There is no way to remove the forks in Sungmin’s face without mangling his eyes even further, and the one sunk into the back of his neck is pushed in with such force that only two thirds of the handle is visible.

 

Blood is everywhere, on Sungmin himself, on the three of them, on the table, the chair, the floor; _everywhere_. Yunho thinks he can faintly hear Donghae yelling something about Sungmin’s turtle, Yesung, but everything is muted beneath the roaring in his ears.

 

“—the turtle, its jaw is—its jaw is—I can’t fix it, Heechul, what—”

 

“Fuck the turtle, come help us with Sungmin, why are you even—”

 

Yunho grabs for the nearest thing to help staunch all the blood leaking, gushing out from Sungmin, and the nearest thing happens to be the hem of his own shirt. It soaks through in what feels like seconds. “No no no no please no, not this again, not again, please, _please_ , not again.”

 

Sungmin struggles up, even as he starts gagging on his own blood, hands reaching up to claw at his face. His nail scrabble and slip, his grip made slippery by the blood. Yunho does not know what to do except to try to stop the blood from flowing, but it is everywhere. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, so sorry—”

 

“Ggggrrk ggrk ggrrrrrk—” Yunho thinks Sungmin is trying to speak, but the— but the fork in his neck is _twisting_. Yunho can actually see the outline of it, the pronged end pressing, pushing, against the skin of Sungmin’s throat, where his vocal cords are. Already one of the prongs have pushed through the front of his throat, with a steady trickle of crimson. “No, stop it, _stop it_ —he’s innocent, stop it stop it stop it—”

 

Then Heechul is pushing him away from the medium, now twitching feebly, fingers spasming about the fork handle stabbed deep into his nape. “We need to stop this, Yunho, we need to end this—”

 

“He’s dying,” Yunho struggles, tearing at the restraining arms Heechul has about his waist. “He’s dying, he’s dying, we need to save him, _this is my fault_!”

 

“No,” Heechul pulls away only to cup his hands about Yunho’s cheeks, his gaze fierce and terrified. “We have to stop this, his things are already here, we can use them, maybe they’ll work—”

 

Then Donghae is there, shoving Heechul away, shouting, “are you crazy? He’s dying because of us— we need to help— we don’t even know how to use—”

 

Yunho takes the opportunity to turn away, to try to help Sungmin, but the medium is unmoving on the floor, head cocked in an impossible angle. And still, so unnaturally still. Yunho’s vision swims, blurry, and he forces back another wave of nausea to pick up Sungmin’s still-warm hand to detect a pulse, but his fingers are trembling too much.

 

“Have to find it,” he is barely away that he is speaking, “have to, I have to, I _have_ to—”

 

“Heechul!” An anguished yell from Donghae makes him turn, and he sees Heechul standing, with the dish containing the blessed salt clutched in his hand. There is no salt left, though, and Heechul’s mouth is bulging, eyes wide open in pure terror.

 

Yunho tries to get up, because it is Heechul, nothing can happen to Heechul, nothing will happen to Heechul, Heechul will not allow anything to happen to him, but he cannot move, cannot even blink. It is that ill-fated night with Jaejoong all over again, and Yunho does not want to hear that again, or see that again, all the red and the wet sound of a spine breaking and the pink and yellow of flesh and fats.

 

Donghae is similarly frozen, and they are forced to watch as Heechul gags, stray crystals of salt falling from his lips. Yunho realises abruptly that It is trying to kill Heechul by— by—

 

He cannot do anything but watch, helplessness and rage and terror all churning in him, throat raw with screams he cannot make, as Heechul gags, body contorted backwards, his previously flat stomach now curved and bloated against the thin fabric of his top.

 

There is a quiet, almost inaudible hiss of sound, like the slow deflating of a balloon, and a wash of red blooms on Heechul’s clothes, spreading outwards like the rays of a macabre sun. And suddenly Yunho can move again, and he lurches forward, clumsy with pain and guilt and a thousand other fucking emotions.

 

“No no no no no no help no no no no no no—” He is dimly aware of the fact that he is screaming; hoarse, animalistic cries. Heechul is another heap of red on the floor, not far away from Sungmin, and there is red, so much red. Red everywhere.

 

But Yunho does not see Donghae from the corner of his eye, does not hear him, so he turns, expecting the worst. There is fury mingling with powerlessness in him, galvanising him, and he runs to Donghae instead, because It lets him, because It does not stop him.

 

Donghae is pressed up against the wall nearest to the entrance, the string of rosary beads he wears beneath his clothes a taut, beaded line against his neck. It is tight, chokingly so, but Donghae still manage to speak through it, to gesture at Yunho.

 

“Run,” he croaks, digging his fingers into his neck in an attempt to get them under the beads. “D-don’t help— stupid— _run_ —”

 

“No,” Yunho gasps, half out of his mind. He reaches Donghae and joins in the grappling, trying with all his might to pull the necklace away from his best friend’s throat. They are too weak, the two of them, and all that is happening is Donghae turning red and purple and now blue, tendons and veins standing stark in his abused neck.

 

“No no no no no no fuck shit please no!” Yunho sobs, to the rhythm of Donghae gagging, tongue swollen and hanging out and mouth agape, trying to pull precious air into his lungs. “No, don’t do this—kill me instead—just kill me—why not me— kill _me_ , you fucking bastard—”

 

His words seem to set off something, and Donghae tries one final, fruitless gasp before his hands fall, stiff by his side, a death rattle stillborn in his throat. Yunho stumbles back, choking on his own mucus and saliva and tears, trying not to look at all the red, but it is everywhere and he cannot escape.

 

Everywhere, everywhere, so much red, everywhere.

 

Laughter is ringing in his ears; soft, familiar, detestable laughter, and Yunho claws at his ears, digging, scratching, trying to stop it, trying to stop the laughing, trying to stop hearing.

  

He does not remember much after that.

 

* * *

 

Yunho does not know how many days have passed, but suddenly there are a lot of people near him and around him, asking questions, touching things and touching him. Yunho wants to move, wants to object at their presence, because this is his house, _this is his home_ , everything belongs to him and no one is allowed to touch it. But he cannot find the energy to.

 

They tried to talk to him, he thinks, but Yunho cannot hear them very well. And then they try to move him, and he does not want to go, but there are so many of them, and he cannot fight against them all.

 

He is useless, has always been useless. Useless useless useless.

 

They take him to some place new, some place he does not recognise. But there is a lot of white and no red around at all so Yunho does not complain.

 

He is so tired.

 

He thinks It is not here. At least, he cannot feel It. There is just himself, and himself.

 

Sometimes he thinks there is a middle-aged man sitting with him, sometimes it is a pretty girl who looks like she is in her twenties. They talk to him, too.

 

But Yunho cannot hear very well. He does not want to hear.

 

 

* * *

 

Sanity trickles back, too slowly, like the flow of sand in an hourglass.

 

The girl is the nurse assigned to his room. The middle-aged man is his doctor. That is all Yunho knows, and all he wants to know. He does not need to know more.

 

He feels safe, in his bubble of white, cocooned from the world. Protected.

 

It cannot reach him here.

 

* * *

 

“You have a visitor, Yunho,” his nurse announces cheerfully through the viewing panel on his door. She pushes it open, a well-dressed young man traipsing along behind her. “One of your friends from university is here!”

 

Yunho blinks, looking up slowly from the jigsaw puzzle he has spread on the floor. His doctor had given it to him some time ago, though Yunho is not sure of how long it has been. He is rather poor at keeping track of the days now, actually.

 

His nurse is chatting with the visitor in low tones, and Yunho thinks he hears her say, “—not lucid most of the time, but today he’s in one of his better moods, so hopefully he’ll talk to a familiar face! Poor man, he is actually rather nice… But you already know that, right, I’m so sorry to be rambling on like that! How do I address you again?”

 

“Changmin,” the stranger answers, one hand tucked casually into his pocket. Yunho furrows his brows. He does not know a Changmin. Or at least, he does not think he does, but his mind is not the most reliable thing these days.

 

His nurse nods, and turns to wave at him. “Have fun now, Yunho! I’ll be back with your dinner in a few hours, okay?” She promises, darting another shy smile at the young man called Changmin, and backs out of Yunho’s room, closing the door with a gentle snap.

 

Resting his head against the padded wall of his room, Yunho stares at the young man in confusion. He really thinks he has never seen this man before in his life. There is an air of familiarity about him however, and the young man smiles at him, revealing even white teeth, and an undecipherable glint in his eye. As though he is privy to a secret that Yunho does not know.

 

“Hello,” Yunho ventures tentatively, jigsaw puzzle forgotten. The young man— Changmin, that is his name, just looks at him, still grinning.

 

Yunho’s bewilderment dies an abrupt death when his visitor opens his mouth, laughter spilling out; soft, familiar, damnable laughter. He knows this voice; he knows every nuance and every layer of it. He is particularly acquainted with how this voice sounds like when laughing. His hands come up to his ears, but there is nothing to cover now, nothing to help him to escape.

 

“Did you miss me, Yunho?” It enquires, almost lovingly. 

* * *

 

End.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted at the stroke of midnight. Happy Halloween!  
> It should have been updated months ago, but I was stuck at a certain scene. I'm glad that I've gotten over the block and written it.  
> Feedback and comments are as always, extremely appreciated.


	3. Omake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick peek at our characters some years after the events of It.

The thirty-seventh time Yunho attempts suicide, it ends the same way as the previous attempts end, all thirty-six of them. 

He’s rather proud of his ingenuity this time, though. It’s taken him a long time -months? years? he can’t keep up with time anymore- to wrench off a sharp wooden splinter from the hidden side of his bed frame, a rather large one, then another, smaller one about the size of his palm and sharpen their tips into fine points using his plastic dining fork and the wall. They don’t give him metal utensils now, anymore, after attempt number sixteen. 

Yunho’s aware of all the vital spots on his body by now, places where he gushes crimson instead of merely bleeding, areas where a nick or a stab or anything else with -relatively- minimal effort can bring about merciful darkness. There is the inner sides of his thighs, and two inches below his knees. The places at his wrists, where his palms meet his arms, but those two areas are trite, unoriginal. There’s the hollow of his throat and an inch and a half down from his left ear. An inch down, from the back of his skull. Three inches down from his pectorals, and of course, the centre of his abdomen. 

He has learnt that stabbing yourself in the heart doesn’t kill you fast enough. It brings along more agony than it’s believed to, and less relief than it should. He finds that a quick slice at the side of his ribs is quicker in inviting the darkness.

The darkness always rescind too quickly, though.

He goes for the back of his neck again, for this attempt. It’s the area where he knows his medulla oblongata is, the section low behind, at the back of his head, where he tried to bash in for attempt number twenty one. 

There’s something familiar about this, the way the splinter drives into his flesh, but the memory is a wisp, too incorporeal as it streaks away from the forefront of his mind. Yunho doesn’t want to catch it, anyway.

He just wants to die. 

He has his left hand clamped around the wood embedded into muscle and bone, and he smiles slowly at the sensation of his breath stuttering, his lungs seizing up. There’s wet slicking over his fingers, the ones on his left hand, and he tightens them, just as he tightens the grip of his right hand, upon the smaller splinter hidden in his grasp.

From beside him; the sound of a tongue clicking in faint disapproval, and a cold hand upon his left, the grip strong, supernaturally so. Yunho grits his teeth and forces himself to speak, even as his mouth convulses and saliva runs from the edge of his lips.

"Just let me," he rasps out, choking on his spittle. "Let- Let m-me-"

"Die?" The owner of the hand currently forcing his fingers open, away from his neck, supplies helpfully. Seconds later, a face appears in Yunho’s dimming vision, amused cruelty reflected in the stark lines of Its beauty. "I think not."

 _Now_ , Yunho tells himself, and lifts his right arm with herculean effort, splinter with its sharp tip out, towards the abdomen of the creature crouching over him. He presses harder with his left, wrenching his hand away from cold fingers that are slack in surprise. He aims not to hurt, but to surprise, to shock. And he hopes the small window of time when It is caught off guard, is enough for him to slip away.

His efforts are futile, though. It hisses out a laugh, and bends at Yunho’s fingers, breaking them easily, delicate bones crushed in Its powerful grip. Yunho shrieks in pain, a high, razor-sharp note run ragged with despair and frustration. And It drops Yunho’s hand, limp and useless, the arm of a marionette cut from its strings, and sets to reknitting human flesh and rebuilding human bone with maddening ease. 

"Why won’t you just let me die?" Yunho snarls, his anger further fanned by how coherent he sounds, how he’s breathing right again. " _Just let me die_!”

It smiles at him, a pseudo-benevolent curve of the lips that does not reach Its eyes. Its gaze is blank and empty and filled with all the souls of Its victims and Yunho does not dare to stare into it too long as It is the abyss and It will have him, and It can’t have him. Yunho won’t allow it and won’t allow It. 

"You die," It proclaims casually, drawing a bloody finger across the high wing of Yunho’s cheek. "You die only when I want you to, Yunho. Because you’re  _mine_. Because you’re Changmin’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An omake mainly written as my thanks for everyone's acceptance of It. I really did not expect it to do so well because of the death and gore in it, so I feel rather like a proud mama in this instance.  
> Crafted as a reply to the questions from quite a few readers, who were asking things like, "so what does Changmin wants with Yunho?", "do they get a happy ending?", "I know Changmin is a demon but will Yunho fall for him?", "do they fall in love?" as well as other variations of the above-mentioned queries.  
> Feedback is as always, extremely appreciated.  
> Have my thanks once again!


End file.
